2nd Punic War FOG Campaign (2)

Saturday we got together to kick off the Punic Wars campaign that my friend Mike is running. To the left you can see my friend Charlie (Hannibal of Carthage) pondering his initial moves. We're using the very good board game Hannibal - Rome and Carthage as the campaign rules and Field of Glory as the tabletop rules. Charlie did a good job of invading northern Italy including giving one Roman army a beating by joining up two of his Carthaginian armies to beat back my Romans when they tried to push back.

When a third Carthaginian army invaded in the South I sent a Roman army to deal with him there. Eventually Hannibal came south to meet me for our initial battle. The tabletop forces are close to each other in points (within 10%) with the Carthaginian army being slightly less points, but with larger battle groups and superior quantities and quality of cavalry. The initial Roman plan was to fight between a steep hill on the left and some broken ground on the right. When our right flank appeared to look in danger of being overwhelmed I sounded the command for a general advance across the line.

In response to our advance the Carthaginians pounced on our right flank where it was exposed, re-directing their cavalry to the center. This is where we are when we called the first day of gaming (see the last photo). Not pictured are one Roman legion and one Roman cavalry unit that have fled the battle. For Carthage they have one unit of elephants that are heading to the rear in rout, one cavalry unit they hope to rally and two units that are fragmented that may recover.  Important points on each side. the Carthaginians have one cavalry unit that is surrounded and close to breaking from losses and one unit of spearmen that is in close combat and close to breaking. For the Romans they have an exposed and vulnerable left flank that is being threatened to be overrun from enemy cavalry and the still exposed right side of their main battle line. In the center the Romans have recently taken some hard losses which may also make that a problem area if any more losses are sustained.

This game is still undecided. We will be finishing it in a future gaming session. The campaign, is looking like it will generate a lot of good fun games.